The Bible Recap - Day 336 (1 Corinthians 12-14) - Year 7

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Today, Paul continues to address problems the church at Corinth is experiencing in their regular worship meetings. It's never fun to have to resolve issues, but fortunately, Paul isn't afraid of conflict. He's hit on some touchy topics so far, and today is no different. He opens by addressing the gifts that God has given each of them for building up the church. There are lots of perspectives on spiritual gifts, so I'll try to address the main viewpoints briefly as we move through the text. One of the common misunderstandings about spiritual gifts is that they're personality adjacent. But since these gifts are given by the spirit, they only show up when we get the spirit, when we enter into a relationship with Yahweh.

Since most of the spiritual inventories or tests are more of a personality test or a natural gifts assessment, they aren't necessarily the best way to determine what spiritual gifts we have. There's nothing wrong with using these tests to discover our natural giftings. Those can benefit the church, too. But the tests aren't necessarily helpful in figuring out our supernatural gifts. Here's what I mean. If Moses, who wasn't good with words, had taken a spiritual gifts test, he probably wouldn't have tested as a prophet, teacher, or leader.

But those are the ways God's spirit equipped and used him. So there's not always a correlation. If you want to know what your spiritual gifts are, one way to tell is by asking other people how the church is currently being built up by your presence. You may have the natural gift of administration, but as far as church is concerned, God might have given you the gift of knowledge. Paul even says we can ask God to give us spiritual gifts that we don't have. That means our gifts can change over time.

They're given by God, and as always, the giver is the one who chooses what to give. As far as the gifts that are signs of the spirits indwelling, some people believe that those were only used in the first century to give validity for God's work in the early church. This belief is usually referred to as cessationism, meaning those gifts have ceased. Others believe these gifts are alive and well today, though there are still nuanced beliefs in that camp about how certain gifts should be used. This belief is usually referred to as continuationism, meaning those gifts continue. We've linked to two articles with more info on this in the show notes.

The list Paul gives in Chapter 12 isn't exhaustive. We see other gifts listed in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4 and 1st Peter 4. However, in the final verses, he does seem to give a ranking because he refers to the higher gifts. The Corinthians were fixated on one gift primarily. speaking in tongues, which Paul mentions last in his apparent hierarchy. He emphasizes the need for diversity in the gifts of the body of Christ, because the spirit uses each unique gift for one unified purpose.

Regardless of whether you believe the gift of tongues is just the gift of being bilingual, or if it's something more, it has obvious benefits for building up and unifying a church that is beginning to cross lots of language barriers. Paul says he will show the Corinthians a more excellent way. Then he dives straight into talking about not just using our gifts, but using our gifts with love as our motivator. He says if love isn't our motivating factor, all our good deeds are multiplied by zero.

Or worse yet, they can even be harmful to the body. He tells us what love looks like and how love acts and says ultimately love will outlast everything, even faith and hope. What? How will it outlast faith and hope? When our faith is made manifest, faith won't need to exist.

It will be proven. And when our hopes are fulfilled, we don't have to hope for those things anymore. There'll be realities. I can't wait to be faithless and hopeless, but love will remain always. In chapter 14, Paul tells them they should all desire to prophesy, which at the very least means to speak truth. Then he talks more about speaking in tongues, and some people believe that what he's saying about tongues here is a reference to a prayer language, because this type

of tongues seems to be different than what happened in Acts 2. This seems to be more directed toward God than toward others, and it seems to be unintelligible, whereas in Acts 2, the languages were clearly understood. Paul says he wants them all to speak in tongues, but not as much as he wants them to prophesy, because that holds greater value for the church at large. And he says if they speak in tongues in public, they should always have an interpreter. Those who believe tongues are another human language usually believe the interpreter is another person who knows that foreign language and can verify what the person is saying. Those who believe tongues are not a human language, usually believe the interpreter is someone God has revealed the message to.

And Paul says it's best if you can serve as your own interpreter. He says he speaks in tongues more than anyone, which may or may not just mean he knows more languages than other people. But then he circles back around to say that prophecy is his preference. Moses says something similar to this in Numbers 11. He says he wishes that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them. In verse 3, Paul says God uses prophecy for a building, for encouragement, and for consolation, and in verse 19, we see that God uses it for instructing others. Paul closes out today with a few helpful guidelines for an orderly worship service.

have diversity in the service, put a two to three person cap on tongues, and there should always be an interpreter, put a two to three person cap on prophecy, then let people weigh it against the truth. There's a lot of debate over what the final verses of this chapter mean. Some say it means women shouldn't be able to speak in tongues or prophesy in the services. But earlier, in chapter 11, Paul said women are allowed to prophesy and pray in the church, so he can't be saying women aren't allowed to speak in church at all. And remember, prophecy is one of the gifts he holds in highest regard. To further complicate matter, Some say his words here apply to all churches, and others say he's addressing specific problems the Corinthian Church is having, possibly related to their Greco-Roman background. For instance, it's possible that the women may only be allowed outside the main meeting area and may be calling into their husbands inside to see what's being said.

If that is what's happening, you can see how that would be super disruptive. So Paul is like, just ask them when you get home. Today, it might be like asking people to silence their cell phones in a service so that things can function in an orderly manner without chaos and distractive. It also seems like the women in Corinth had a problem treating their husbands with honor and respect, which is something God calls them to do and calls both parties to do. So Paul addresses it. When we take everything he said in this letter about women in the church,

overall, his words seem to be more about creating peace and unity and order than about prohibiting women from using their giftings. Elsewhere in scripture, Paul affirms the gifts of women serving in the early church. After all, Priscilla is one of the founders of this particular church, and Paul describes her as his co-laborer in Romans 16. If you're a woman, it's easy to read these verses and be disheartened by Paul's words here, and maybe even make you want to dismiss him all together, but as with anything challenging we read, let me encourage you to hang in there as we see the big picture unfold. This actually connects to my Godshot today. I'm so grateful for God's great love

for diversity and how he works in and through all of us to display more angles and textures and colors of his glory. And because he's efficient, it not only glorifies him, but it benefits us, too. Through God's work in us, we actually enhance each other's existence. He isn't building a one-dimensional kingdom where we all look and act the same. He gives his diverse body unique gifts to offer back to him and connects them all in an orderly fashion, like only he can do. He's where the joy is. Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. Today, we kept 1st Corinthians 13, aka the love chapter. For some of you, this season can feel extra full of love and meriness, and for others,

it can feel extra lonely or even extra both. Regardless, we want to encourage you to stay in the Word. Don't lose sight of Jesus while you're busy celebrating his birthday. Don't overlook his deep love for the Father and for us that he would come to Earth to save his people. When we zoom out on the entire story, we can see how That love saturates every page of scripture. So we'll see you back here tomorrow, whether you're drinking peppermintzsche, sitting by your biblically accurate nativity, or not, and we'll look for more of his love, even in the chapters that aren't known for it.